here's to the heartbreakers
by high improbability
Summary: Listen: she used to love him. AusHunPrus


**here's to the heartbreakers**

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Their story is one he likes to tell and retell over and over, if only because it's saddening for him to do so.

Listen: she used to love him.

_one._

She has thin lips and hands far too big for her small wrists, and there is a chip in one of her teeth. Her hair is quite lackluster and her eyelashes are quite long. But to him, she's beautiful.

He tells her so one night under the stars, and he thinks she's going to throw something snappy back with that smart sophisticated manner she has, but instead she gazes up at him with those pretty green eyes he's grown to love.

_Thank you_, she whispers, because they're both young and unaware of the consequences of immortality.

She smiles, and it's been so long since she's really, truly smiled and despite her thin lips and that chip in her incisor she has a smile that's warmer than summer sun, and that makes her beautiful.

_So are you_, she adds, just after he's given up hope that she's ever going to reply at all.

_two_.

His friends are useless idiots.

_And then_, he moans, knocking back another glass of sherry, _she walks out on me, with her great heels and then s-she glares at me like she's gonna punch me in the face, and then she actually does, because I send her _one_ dirty letter and she flips absolute _shit_…_

_Ah_, Spain intones faithfully and somberly, staring out the window. _She always has been quite the puncher._

France winces at the memory and sighs. _Instead of sulking around Germany's basement, Prussia_, he says, in his stupid sexy chick-snagging accent, _why don't you start from the beginning_?

_three_.

They had history, nobody could ever deny that. He vaguely remembers horses – yes, there were horses, did they not ride them together on the Magyar steppe, laughing and frolicking and pretending they weren't burdened by the duties of a nation?

_You're awesome_, he says, after his companion's managed to tame a wild horse they've found raring on the plains.

His companion returns the stare for the longest time, as if it's horribly out of character for him, then the gentle lips part to make a sound. _Thank you_. Then he laughs. _So are you_.

Things were different then.

_four_.

He hates himself for introducing her to his cousin – damn wimpy weakling of a nation. Perhaps if she'd never known Austria, she'd never have started wearing dresses or started sweeping his floors or becoming a babysitter to Rome's adorable younger grandson.

Perhaps they'd still be talking, then.

Perhaps that ring on her finger would have been given by him.

_I just don't see why you can't accept him_, she fumes two nights before the wedding. _You're my best friend, all right? And it's not like I actually _love_ him, Prussia, it's merely that it's beneficial to my nation. Is that not enough of a reason for you_?

He shakes his head. _No_. Because even if she's telling the truth now, he knows that she will learn to love Austria in time, and then his girl won't be quite his anymore.

_five_.

The next day was the day before the wedding. They'd met, then, in a lovely, secret clearing in her lovely, secret forests.

_I love you_, was what she said. _You're my best friend and I love you_. And she'd looked at him like she wanted to kiss him.

He didn't know what to answer; he didn't know what to do.

So he ran. He never showed up at the wedding.

She never properly spoke to him after that.

_six_.

_I think_, says Spain, _you should say sorry_.

_What_? Prussia sputters. _You can't be serious._

_I agree with Espagne_, says France matter-of-factly. _Let's face it. Without ever mending your broken relationship you will never be able to sweep her off her feet and ride away into the sunset._

Prussia gets around to doing neither. He doesn't have to._  
_

_seven._

When the year is in the third millennia she approaches him, all sugar and spice, and says she's sorry.

_Too late for that now_, he says. _Not a nation anymore, remember_? And he's tired, and she probably is too.

But the determination is still there, saying that she's made up her mind and that she _will_ make the thousand years of hating him up to him, and she keeps rambling on about boosting bilateral relationships with his brother (_as if that would help_), and he realizes that she's a little older and a little more girl, but she's still the same little boy he'd played with back in his early childhood years. So he closes his eyes and silences her with a raised finger.

They stand in awkward, companionable silence.

_So_, he says. _Haven't seen much of you around lately_.

She gives him a charming smile. _I've been around_, she replies.

(_You just never did anything when it counted_.)

Another awkward pause.

_I still love him, you know_, she says in a small voice, refusing to meet his eyes. _Austria, I mean_.

He sighs heavily. _I know. _

_eight_.

Now he looks back and remembers that night under the stars when he first told her she was beautiful. And he replays the memory over and over and over again, watching Spain coddle up with Belgium or South Italy or France give Canada or Seychelles an endearing hug, wanting, wishing, _praying_ that he'd seized his chance when he'd had it, and he doesn't want to forget.

_nine_.

She's a girl with too-thin lips and too-big hands and a chipped tooth, and listen, because she used to love him.

But she doesn't anymore.

.

.

.

_ten._

_I'm sorry_, Hungary says again.

Prussia says nothing, just throws his arms around her and hopes for the better.

* * *

**A little ditty to get rid of my writer's block. Sorry for the quality of utter crap. ;.;**


End file.
